Someone claiming to be a veteran Amazon employee posted a rant on Reddit telling young interns to 'stay the f--- away'
"You are smart, driven, and are no doubt going to be successful in whatever you do, which is why I want to urge you to STAY THE F--- AWAY from Amazon when it comes time for you to leave school and jump into the workforce," this person wrote on a Reddit forum.
The anonymous commenter goes on to critique Amazon's work-life balance, complicated stock offerings, and performance-review process.
The Reddit post has since caught fire, attracting more than 500 comments, some negative and some positive.
The detail in the post suggests the person has at least some knowledge of the inner workings of Amazon, though we were not able to verify the commenter's identity or employment status.
The person wrote:
PIP is an abbreviation of "Performance Improvement Plan," a three-month track that Amazon uses for employees it thinks are underperforming. Past accounts of PIPs make it seem as if the process is essentially a way to get workers to resign, though there have been stories about similar things happening at other big tech companies.
Some of the comments on the post were positive, noting that interns may have a good reason to work at Amazon, even if only for a short time.
"Amazon can be an asset, however," amazonwhy writes. "In IT, it's very common to jump from position to position while initially climbing the ladder. For some, Amazon is the first opportunity they have to add one of the Big 4 on their resume. After that, the opportunities are endless."
Others say Amazon's work culture varies widely from team to team.
"It's certainly bad in some parts of the company, but team culture is vastly different across multiple organizations," theeggman84 writes. "I work eight hours a day and go home feeling happy, and no one's had a problem with those hours. I've been on four different teams in three different orgs, and all of them have been fine."
Amazon declined to comment on this story, but it has said in the past that its attrition rates are in line with the rest of the tech industry.
Disclosure: Jeff Bezos is an investor in Business Insider through his personal investment company Bezos Expeditions.